Labor Lawyer in Caballito (Buenos Aires City): which court hears your claim and how to file

If you work in Caballito, or you were dismissed from a job in the neighbourhood, your claim goes to the National Labor Court and starts at SECLO, the City's mandatory prior conciliation stage. Neither happens in Caballito: the courts sit downtown.

Caballito's forum: the National Labor Court and mandatory SECLO

Caballito lies entirely inside the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires. It makes up Comuna 6 on its own, and none of its boundaries touch the General Paz beltway or the Riachuelo. That gives you something the border neighbourhoods do not have: if you work here, there is no argument about whether your case belongs to the City or to the Province.

The forum is the National Labor Court, governed by Law 18,345. It is made up of eighty single-judge first-instance courts and the National Labor Court of Appeals, with ten chambers of three judges each. None of them sits in Caballito: they are all in the downtown area, which you reach on subway line A along Avenida Rivadavia.

The rule that decides whether you enter that forum is section 24 of Law 18,345, as worded by section 80 of Law 27,802 (Official Gazette, 6 March 2026). In cases between workers and employers, jurisdiction lies, at the claimant's choice, with the judge of the place of work, of the place where the contract was entered into, or of the employer's domicile. One of the three being in the City is enough.

Before suing there is a compulsory stop: the Mandatory Labor Conciliation Service, created by Law 24,635. Its section 1 imposes it as a prior stage for claims within the jurisdiction of the National Labor Court; its section 3 declares it free of charge for the worker. SECLO takes the case if the employer's registered domicile, the place where the contract was entered into, or the place of work is in the City. Working in Caballito triggers the third one directly.

One 2026 caveat: if the claim is against the National Government, or it appears as an interested third party, this is no longer the labor court's business. Section 79 of Law 27,802 rewrote section 20 of Law 18,345 and moved those cases to the Federal Administrative Court.

You live in Caballito, but where do you work? That decides your court

This is where most people in the neighbourhood get it wrong: your home address is not a connecting factor in a dismissal or unpaid-wages claim. The three listed in section 24 are the place of work, the place where the contract was entered into, and the employer's domicile. Your home in Caballito is not on the list.

It weighs especially here because Caballito is the geographic centre of the City and a neighbourhood of people who commute out to work. Avenida Rivadavia, subway line A and the Sarmiento railway, with its station in the neighbourhood, connect Caballito to the western suburbs. For anyone making that trip, the legal answer is the opposite of the intuitive one.

Case 1: you live and work in Caballito

All three connecting factors are in the City. You go to the National Labor Court and through SECLO. There is no jurisdictional argument to be had.

Case 2: you live in Caballito and work in the Province

If you commute west, the contract was entered into there and the employer is domiciled there, no connecting factor falls in the City. Your claim goes to a Buenos Aires Province Labor Tribunal, governed by provincial Law 11,653, whose section 3 gives you an analogous three-way choice: the tribunal of the place where the contract was entered into, of the place where you render services, or of the defendant's domicile. The judicial districts of Morón and La Matanza sit on that route, among others.

The consequences are large. First: there is no SECLO. In Buenos Aires Province pre-trial conciliation is voluntary and is handled by the regional offices of the provincial Labor Ministry, whose competence is set by the place where services are rendered. You may attend, or sue directly. Second: the provincial case is heard by a panel of judges, with an oral trial hearing.

Case 3: you live in the Province and work in Caballito

This mirrors the previous case and works in your favour. The place where you render services is in the City, so you may choose the National Labor Court even if you live in Ramos Mejía or Castelar. On that path SECLO becomes mandatory again.

The exception: workplace accidents and occupational disease

Here the criterion flips and your home address does count. The new section 24 clarifies that in claims brought under Laws 24,557 and 27,348 the territorial jurisdiction of those regimes applies. And Law 27,348 lets you choose between the jurisdictional medical board of the worker's domicile, that of the place where services were actually rendered, and that of the address where you habitually report. If you live in Caballito and were injured working in the Province, you can rely on your City address. That stage before the medical board is mandatory and comes first, unless you were working off the books.

Two details of the current wording. The former section 24 referred to the defendant's domicile; the current one says the employer's: where several companies are sued, do not assume it is enough that any one of them has a City address. And section 94 of Law 27,802 applies these new rules to pending proceedings in which jurisdiction has not yet been settled.

Step by step: filing your claim from Caballito

1. You serve a telegram demand. The free worker's telegram under Law 23,789 costs nothing. It goes to the employer's address, not yours.
2. You gather evidence before it disappears. Pay slips, messages, schedules, witnesses. In an unregistered employment claim this decides the outcome.
3. You file at SECLO. Your lawyer opens it through the agency's portal. That filing suspends the limitation period for the term of section 257 of the Employment Contract Law: six months at most.
4. Hearing with the conciliator. Drawn from a public list, with the hearing held within ten days of the appointment. You attend in person, with counsel. The contingency fee agreement cannot exceed ten per cent of the settled amount.
5. Conciliation deadlines. Twenty business days from the hearing, extendable by up to fifteen more if both parties ask.
6. Settlement or closing record. With a settlement, it goes up for approval and the authority rules within three days. Without one, the record is issued and the judicial route opens. The company not showing up does not block your claim.
7. Complaint before the National Labor Court. Since the reform you must name every item of evidence and identify the documents with the complaint itself. Service runs for ten days.
8. Driving and watching the file. The parties now drive it. The instance lapses with no prior warning after six months at first instance and three on appeal, in summary proceedings, in enforcement actions and in interlocutory matters.

The transfer of the labor courts to the City judiciary: what it means for you

This only matters to someone claiming with a City connection, which is your case if you work in Caballito. Section 90 of Law 27,802 approved the Agreement for the Transfer of the Judicial Function in Labor Matters from the national sphere to the City's Labor Justice, signed by the National Government and the City Government on 9 February 2026. Section 91 instructs the Executive to transfer the resources the local forum needs to operate.

But section 92 is categorical: Law 18,345 remains in force until the transfer process is completed. Put plainly: today your claim from Caballito is filed and heard before the National Labor Court, with SECLO as the prior step. The transfer is approved by statute, but not finished. You can follow the procedural reform in detail in our glossary.

Common mistakes made by claimants from Caballito

• Assuming your home address rules. Living in Caballito does not bring your case to the City if you work in the Province, and living in the Province does not take you out of the City if you work here.
• Filing at SECLO when the claim is excluded. Section 2 of Law 24,635 leaves out injunctions and interim relief, pre-trial evidence, claims against insolvent or bankrupt employers, claims against the State and actions by minors. Workplace accidents do not go through it either.
• Treating the SECLO suspension as open-ended. Six months at most: the two-year period runs out all the same.
• Suing while holding evidence back. All of it is offered with the complaint. What you did not offer, you lost.
• Signing a settlement without approval. Without a reasoned decision from the authority there is no res judicata.
• Letting the file sit. Six months of inactivity kill the instance with no warning.
• Sending the telegram to the wrong address. A misdirected demand does not place the employer in default and leaves you without a basis for constructive dismissal.

Frequently Asked Questions

If your job was on the other side of the General Paz beltway, see the Lomas de Zamora area, where the provincial route applies. To locate the courthouses, see Courthouse and Palacio de Justicia.